When he was a Roman Catholic bishop, Fernando Lugo taught liberation theology to uplift the poor. Now president, he is in the uncomfortable position of sending special forces into Paraguay's northern forests to hunt kidnappers whose leaders include a former student and his former altar boy.

The ties between Lugo and the kidnappers of a wealthy rancher are providing fuel for an effort to impeach the president, whose election last year ended 61 years of unbroken right-wing Colorado Party rule. Lugo's government calls it a hypocritical campaign by politicians who committed far worse sins under the nation's long and brutal dictatorship.

Lugo, known as "bishop of the poor," was elected in large part for his advocacy of liberation theology, a Catholic movement that found inspiration in faith to push for social change, though the Vatican suppressed many versions and discouraged its teaching. Lugo renounced his church vows, saying he could do more for the poor as president than as bishop.

The kidnapping of rancher Fidel Zavala to finance what the band has called a revolutionary movement for the poor now threatens to turn Lugo's past against him, taking his nonviolent idealism in a criminal direction.

The kidnappers _ a group linked to several bank robberies and other kidnappings in the past decade _ showed up Oct. 15 on Zavala's ranch wearing military uniforms and calling themselves the Paraguayan People's Army.

The rancher's family pleaded with Lugo not to send in the police, fearing Zavala would be killed. But Lugo is in a tough spot. He is accused by critics on the right of coddling the kidnappers while those on the left say he has potentially violated the rights of poor forest dwellers by sending in police armed with U.S.-provided anti-terror equipment.

"Fernando Lugo continues to be deeply tied to the kidnappers," Colorado Party Sen. Juan Carlos Galaverna declared on television last week. He accused the president not only of mentoring the future kidnappers, but continuing to act as their "chief, or at least the protector of the band."

Interior Minister Rafael Filizzola told The Associated Press that the allegation "defies common sense."

"They're trying to stigmatize the Paraguayan left because of this, but the left has always been nonviolent," he said. "The violence came from (Alfredo) Stroessner, a right-wing dictatorship that tortured and killed. The violence never came from the left, nor the church."

Filizzola described the kidnappers as dangerous. On Monday he asked Paraguay's Congress for $1 million to finance the special forces' overtime and to pay for tips on Zavala's whereabouts.

"We have the objective of finding them, capturing them and making them face justice," he said.